


Day 5: A Good Morning

by fascinationex



Series: MEGASTAR-MAS 2020 [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, contemplating consequences is for other people, culture clash au, megastarmas 2020, once again starscream has a plan which he is sure is genius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28395378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex
Summary: Megatron was relieved to get away from the city.
Relationships: Megatron/Starscream (Transformers), background soundwave/shockwave
Series: MEGASTAR-MAS 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072040
Comments: 22
Kudos: 74





	Day 5: A Good Morning

Megatron was relieved to get away from the city.

Iacon was a pretty city, behind its smooth yellow walls (golden, they called them, in their own city propaganda), full of grand feats of architecture. The carefully maintained social hierarchy was strangely beloved by the mechanisms who lived there, bowing first before their Prime, then their councillors all the way down to minor officiants in their government. Beneath those was an awkward underclass who seemed to believe that they, or their families perhaps, could also aspire to those lofty positions if they only worked hard enough and didn’t rock the boat.

Of course, anyone looking in from the outside could see that such a society was… pyramid shaped. There was only one Prime. There were only twelve councillors. Each new tier was less accessible than, and precariously propped up by, the one before it. 

The people of the city were stiff and conservative and mostly wary of foreign things, which made it one of the clan’s least favourite places to trade. But the wet season had been very wet indeed, driving down upon them in acid rain for weeks upon weeks. They’d decided almost unanimously to avoid travelling across the open plains that would have landed them at Kaon or Vos by the time the most severe storms hit. 

So instead they had organised their permits a week in advance, filed them in triplicate, and wintered in the shelter of Iacon’s “golden” walls. The bolder city-dwellers—and the richer ones, who wished to draw attention to themselves—showed up during the six weeks they’d spent there to purchase odds and ends, and to gawk. 

Mainly to gawk, if Megatron was honest. Actually owning anything made by ‘wilders’ and ‘barbarians’ seemed a bit beyond the pale for anyone in that city. 

But the things that were easily picked up in any riverbed out in the Cybertronian wastelands were rare and curious to city-forged mechanisms, who built their big walled fortresses above energon wells and didn’t travel much. 

Laserbeak, whose interest in collecting anything that glinted in the light drove Soundwave spare in a regular season, had traded over a lot of nonsense—sparkly rocks, the fragile plates of a cybermussel, brittle crystals that hummed when stroked—in exchange for refined liquid fuels and credit chips. And that had been about the best of the season. 

They packed up as soon as the last major storm of the season ended. Six weeks was a short stay—but even though the shadow of the big city was arguably a better position than being holed up in a cave network, it was still better for the clan to move on as soon as possible. They needed to supplement their dwindling stockpile of fuel with fresh hunting, and find somewhere to let the retrorats out of their baskets before the warmer seasons came and they stopped sleeping and ate each other in their confinement. 

Before the sun was up, the whole clan had burst into activity: polyethelene mats were pulled up and rolled up and tucked away, and most of the tents folded down to almost nothing, whirring away and tuning themselves flat with a _click click click_ of mechanical motion. Those with larger alt modes suited for all-purpose travel transformed and allowed themselves to be loaded up with cases. 

Every clan necessarily travelled light—some of them, Megatron knew, allowed each member to keep only what he could carry. 

Of course, if Megatron had subscribed to that practice, they wouldn’t have had any of Laserbeak’s collection of shiny nonsense to sell to ridiculous city mechanisms, and they certainly wouldn’t have had as many retrorats to slaughter and drink from at need. 

“That’s kind of a lot,” Long Haul said, through his teeth, as Megatron passed by. He was making sure that they weren’t leaving too much rubbish and hadn’t caused any excessive damages. Kaon might not have cared about their leavings, but Iacon would cancel all permits and throw them out for good if they found so much as a stray scorch mark. 

“What are you talking about? You’re fine,” said Scrapper, taking another case from Shockwave and throwing it none-too-gently on top of the pile already loaded into the shallow-sided dump truck. 

“He’s fine,” he said to Shockwave, sounding very confident. 

Long Haul sunk a little lower upon his wheels with an unhappy grunt. 

Megatron kept walking. He was in the habit of carrying his own things, even if not all of his clan members had the same ability. 

The twin stars that created Cybertron’s unique orbit both rose within hours of each other by the end of the storm season. They were on the road between one sun’s rise and the next, leaving only a lot of flattened ground and a stamped permit in Iacon’s files. 

Megatron brought up the rear in his tank mode, keeping a careful optic out to ensure nobody was lagging behind. Wildrider and Drag Strip were up front. It gave them the opportunity to burn some of their excesses of energy off. 

They moved out slowly: this was not a marching army, but rather a migrating extended family, and they were in no particular rush today. They spread out, undisciplined. They talked as they went, swapped entertainment, and traded the last of the rust sticks between them. 

Megatron never begrudged carrying Soundwave, who did not have an alt-mode capable of travel. Mass-shifted as far as he could manage with the cassettes still ensconced in his chest, he rode upon Megatron’s turret with one long leg folded up and the other braced on the side skirt. Megatron was not quite sure why, but it had become apparent that riding upon their clan head’s lumbering war frame was a position of some envy—even for those who _had_ vehicle modes. 

When the horizon turned purple-red and orange with the setting of the first sun, Megatron signalled Soundwave and he called the halt, blaring its signal across the whole group. Those nearest the pair twitched and winced. 

Soundwave slithered down from Megatron’s turret to shake out his stiff joints and release the cassettes from their docking spots. Rumble and Frenzy immediately began bickering at the top of their voices, but all Megatron caught of Ravage was a smooth steely tail disappearing into the spiky crystal outcroppings. 

It took them only a few minutes to unload and leave most of their things in neat packages, ready to be tied back onto their carriers with the sunrise. The storm season was too recently ended to risk sleeping under the open sky, so automated tents sprang up here and there with their familiar whirring and clicking—fewer, however, than the longer-term encampments warranted. When travelling, plenty of mechanisms who had no interest in living together doubled up simply to halve the packing and unpacking. 

Within a few minutes there was a pit dug for the crystals they’d cleared away to set up the tents, which they would light when the sky finally grew dark. Megatron arranged and sent out the skeleton watch schedule with minimal protest in response—although of course Dead End tended to receive instructions like they were the end of the world, every time. Megatron thought he benefited from being completely ignored. 

A ditch for any waste products was dug, and with the bulk of the day’s work done, they settled in for the evening. Those who had projects to continue took advantage of the last of the light, knotting textiles or, in Soundwave’s case, unpacking his set up and washing clean energon crystals to be liquidised and concentrated overnight. 

Megatron set his own tent in a space someone had already cleared of crystal outcroppings, toeing aside a few larger shards and crunching the rest underfoot. The evening was a relaxed one—not as loud as it would inevitably become once they’d set down in a longer-term camp, but definitely more boisterous than they’d been able to get without engendering a _noise complaint_ for the last few weeks. 

Iacon had regulations about the volume at which you were allowed to speak, of all things. Their construction workers had to have specific permits. 

The very thought made Megatron… tired. 

Out here, there was nothing for miles but wild crystals, empty air and starlight. They could be as loud as they wanted and get into whatever scuffles they wanted—which was more than a few. Megatron didn’t bother to break many of them up. It was, he figured, just high spirits and the inevitable result of being cooped up for weeks at a time. People relaxed in different ways, and not all of them picked fights. 

He was at more _particular_ pains to ignore the leering revs and the occasional little engine whines in the camp, but he did notice that Soundwave and Shockwave disappeared in discrete silence during the evening—particularly as Ravage ended up slinking out of the darkness to flop with his chin on Megatron’s knee like a put-upon, long-suffering shadow. 

“Are you staying with me, then?” Megatron asked at last, when he felt it time to go to bed and recharge for the day to come. He had assigned himself the early morning watch shift, just before dawn. 

“I hope not,” said Ravage. He got to his paws and—bravely, Megatron thought—sent a comm message to Soundwave. He was close enough that there was a tiny buzz of interference, even though Megatron couldn’t hear what he said. 

After a second, he shook his head. Then he stretched his back out in a long, sinuous wave, flexed his claws and headed back to find whichever tent Soundwave was staying in. 

Megatron watched him go until his tail disappeared behind Motormaster, then got up himself. His knee joints creaked and a cable in his back twinged when he did: after travelling all day in tank mode, and sitting still for hours after, he had become stiff. It would ease with recharge. 

Megatron set his internal alarm and retreated to where he had set up his own tent for the night. His frame was hardy and he didn’t strictly _need_ more bedding than a tarp on the ground, but he pulled an extra rug from his subspace anyway. It was finger-thick and cushioning. 

Feeling more relaxed than he had in months and more or less at peace, Megatron curled up on top of it and fell into recharge. 

* * *

He woke up to a face. 

It was a remarkably pretty face, of dark metal and perfectly symmetrical angles, with red eyes that glowed gently in the dimness inside his tent. 

It took a second for Megatron to recall the relevant details while his processor was clearing the fog of recharge. Firstly, the face was not one with which he was familiar (he was certain—he would not have forgotten someone who looked like that), secondly, their clan was no longer at Iacon, surrounded by strange city-mecha, and thirdly, he had gone to his tent _alone_ the evening prior. 

“Frag.” The face—and dirty mouth, apparently—drew away, jolting back in surprise at his sudden wakefulness. 

Megatron’s optics blinked, off then on again. 

Then he reached out one massive hand and grabbed that strange face, secured the other hand on the neck beneath it, and used his size advantage and not-inconsiderable strength to roll them, hurling the stranger into the ground beneath him. 

There was a thunderous clank of metal and a truly piercing shriek that cut out only with the full force of the impact. 

“Get _off_ me, you giant oaf!” screeched the strange mech. 

Megatron disregarded this. He kneeled heavily across the stranger’s legs, trusting his own weight to keep him down. 

He squeezed with the hand on his throat. “Give me one reason I should not rip your spark out.” 

“I didn’t _do_ anything—” 

“You snuck into my tent.” Which Megatron regarded as ‘something’. 

And, he wasn’t saying it aloud—he chose not to give whoever the pit this was such satisfaction—but there had certainly been a watch schedule, and he had faith that his own people had not abandoned their duties. 

It was Dead End and Motormaster on duty, with Laserbeak keeping an optic on the outer edges of camp. 

He sent a message. 

_:Nobody’s gonna get past me,:_ Motormaster blustered, unhelpfully. 

_:No?:_ Dead End sent back to his query, sounding somewhere between annoyed and weary, as was his way. _:I’ve been watching. Silent as the grave.:_

Laserbeak, too, sent him a similarly swift negative, and an image capture of their little huddle of tents. It seemed undisturbed. 

None of them had seen anything creeping up on the camp. 

“Is that some kind of crime?” the interloper croaked incredulously. 

Megatron could feel the effort of his vocaliser buzzing against his hand. He wasn’t very big, he realised, shaking off the dregs of recharge still. Megatron could usually bet on himself being bigger than almost anyone he came across—but the stranger would barely have reached his shoulder. He was light, too, and the lightweight metal of his armour creaked under Megatron’s grip. 

“It’s not like it locks. It doesn’t even have real walls!” 

Megatron woke Soundwave up, jolting him awake with a priority communication. 

_:Make sure everything’s okay out there.:_

Soundwave returned an unprotesting affirmative, and then a still, hanging moment later Megatron could hear him picking his way through the camp, his footsteps light but sure outside. Next was the sound of Motormaster’s engine turning over, loud in the relative quiet. 

Beneath him, the stranger went tense. 

“ _Sneaking in_ isn’t a crime, no,” Megatron said with a sharp, nasty smile. “Stealing, or injuring someone else—” 

“I’m not _stealing_ from you—what the pit do you even have to _steal_!” 

Soundwave sent him back a wordless all-clear, confirming what the watch had already reported. 

“Fine,” said Megatron, lifting his hand cautiously from the throat cables of the stranger in his tent—and now on his comfortable berth rug, although he supposed he’d brought that upon himself by slamming him down there. “It seems you really are only sneaking about camp. What were you _intending_ to do, then?” 

“Not get caught, that’s for certain!” He rubbed his throat with one hand, glowering fiercely at Megatron as though this was, in some mysterious way, all _Megatron’s_ fault and not an ache he’d caused himself. 

“And then what?” He was trying to place the accent. It wasn’t one from a clan he knew, but that didn’t mean anything. It might seem like a good idea to someone to try to assassinate the leader of a large, successful clan like Megatron’s. Especially if they could do it in secret, while the camp was under watch. 

If he had not woken up— 

“Tell me!” he snarled, reaching forward again. 

Quickly the mech leaned away, drawing his throat cables out of the path of Megatron’s swipe. “Ugh! If you _must_ know—” 

“I really must, yes,” Megatron growled. 

“—do not _interrupt_ me while I’m speaking then.” He pulled his hand from his neck and waved it expressively. 

The hand was an interesting one—Megatron hadn’t noticed when it had been clutching at his own thick arm, but it was painted dark blue, and polished to a gleaming shine. It was a rare mechanism who had such well-polished _hands_. Mechanisms with polished hands did not _work_ with their hands. 

That, coupled with his painfully educated dialect, told Megatron that he was likely to be someone of consequence to _somebody._

Megatron didn’t have a great deal of respect for city-mecha in general, but they did have high walls and armies. Which meant he probably shouldn’t rip this one’s spark out and toss him in a ditch. 

_Whoever_ he was, he was at pains to appear utterly unfazed by either Megatron’s size or his aggression. And also: obnoxious. 

“It’s got nothing to do with _you_ really. I’m just avoiding an… onerous outcome—” 

“What, you’ve got—debts?” 

“ _Debts_?” He sounded much more scandalised by the prospect than he had by the implication that he might have been here to steal or murder. “No, I do not have _debts_ , you _raving savage_ , I’m avoiding being conscripted into the priesthood, tha—” 

“The Primacy?” He’d never heard of anyone trying to _avoid_ the priesthood. Most of the mechanisms he’d encountered in Iacon had seemed to think it was the road to a quiet, comfortable life where all one’s needs were taken care of. The examinations for entrance were said to be a gruelling series of tests of education, intellect and persistence. 

“Is there _another_ priesthood that sane mechanisms are at great pains to avoid?” 

“I wouldn’t know,” Megatron said, scowling at him. He had no interest in _why_ this little idiot was avoiding a prize for which city-forged mechs seemed to fight fiercely. “You have no business _here_ , in any case—and I’m sure someone has begun to miss you already.” 

“Oh, they won’t miss me for days,” he said, waving one long-fingered hand. 

He doubted that. A lot. 

“They don’t miss anything much, in Iacon,” Megatron pointed out. He’d had public officers come to him querying a missing comma in a written statement, before. Usually within the hour of submission. 

“Don’t be a fool,” sniffed the interloper. “Do I _look_ Iaconite to you?” 

Megatron squinted at him. To be fair, running away from a prestigious position instead of sedately accepting the honour was not an attitude he associated much with the Iaconites. 

And… now that he wasn’t three inches from his nose, he could take in a little more of his form. 

It was a nice form. To go with an appalling attitude. Apparently. The glossy cockpit—significantly closer to golden than Iacon’s yellow walls—was a particular point of interest. He had sharp turbines, and long, flat wings with sharp angles. 

He looked until the seeker—for that was surely what he was, even though he had shown up all alone instead of with a trine—shifted in what must presumably be discomfort. There was a lot to look at. It _was_ a nice form. 

“I’ve seen flight frames in Iacon,” Megatron said stubbornly, lifting his gaze. Not seekers, of course. And not polished to a shine—no, there was only one place on Cybertron where creatures looked like _this_ and spoke like _that_. “But I suppose you’re Vosian.” 

“Very good,” said the seeker, sounding honestly surprised. 

Rude like a Vosian, too, Megatron supposed. “Fine. So you ran away from your responsibilities—” 

“ _Excuse me_?” 

Megatron ignored this, too. “—and stupidly revealed yourself no more than a day away from the city. Why, exactly? You’re within a short flight of Iacon yet. We can leave you with a quarter cube of fuel and you’ll have no choice to go back.” 

“Ugh,” said the seeker. 

Now that Megatron had sat back a little—the better to get a good look at him—he had the room to heave his wings up and down in an expressive show of exasperation. Wings like that were uncommon, even among seekers: big for his size, perfectly proportioned, polished so that the white flats of them _glowed_. Megatron could well imagine how that silky smooth finish would feel on his mouth. 

“Yes, fine, but the point is that they’ll never be able to take me _now_. My reputation is thoroughly compromised. As for revealing myself—you’re a lighter sleeper than I expected,” he admitted, wings flicking, sharp and irritated to go with the unsatisfied twist of his mouth. “I didn’t even touch you.” 

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” Megatron said, bitingly. “What does reputation have to do with it?” 

The seeker smiled. “Don’t you know? The primacy only takes on those who are— _untouched._ ” 

Megatron thought of several of the priests and public officials he’d seen. 

“They don’t,” he said, with great certainty. 

“They do _officially_ , which is what will matter to them. Seekers are mechana non grata over there—they don’t want us, and frankly, I don’t want to spend any time with _them_ either, the stuffy, fussy little idiots. I’m merely taking advantage of your quaint custom of sparkmate kidnapping—” 

Megatron bristled. “We don’t do _that_ either.” 

Not that it wasn’t a practice. But it wasn’t _their_ practice. 

“Oh, _honestly_ ,” sighed the seeker, waving one hand. “It doesn’t matter what you actually _do_ —” 

“It matters to _us_ ,” Megatron insisted. 

He thought of the mated pairs and groups in his own clan. He could, arguably, see Onslaught personally kidnapping every one of his mates—that was basically a regular morning, and would almost certainly happen once they all got up—but Soundwave and Shockwave? Or _Dead End_ working up the energy to kidnap anyone? 

“It doesn’t matter to the Primacy, or to the Vosian courts—luckily for me.” 

The Vosian courts. Did that make this pretty, self-absorbed little thing some kind of criminal? No, that didn’t make sense. 

“You have to take an exam to enter the priesthood,” Megatron said slowly, drawn in very much despite himself. 

“Yes, I thought that would save me, too. The science academy was more than happy to _pass on_ my entrance examination scores, once they realised who I was and how I’d shamed my entire extended family by passing.” 

Megatron looked blankly at him. This explanation made no sense whatsoever. A science academy sounded perfectly respectable, but undoubtedly less prestigious than the Primacy was in Iacon. Iacon was a theocracy, after all. 

“You haven’t a clue who I am, do you?” asked the seeker, sounding bizarrely satisfied. 

“Should I?” 

“Absolutely not.” He didn’t sound as though he meant ‘absolutely not’—he sounded as though he was torn between being delighted and being insulted. 

“Go on then,” sighed Megatron, sitting back on his hands on the rug. The seeker immediately began to examine the compressed parts of his leg armour. It wasn’t a kind Megatron saw very often: flexible rather than stiff, and very light. He hadn’t seen seekers much outside of holocaps, but they were supposed to be very, _very_ fast. “Enlighten me.” 

“My name is Starscream.” 

It rang a bell, but only distantly. It was one of those absurdly dramatic Vosian names that cropped up in the aristocracy… where had he heard it? 

“Ah,” said Starscream, knowingly, “you do know who I am.” 

“I don’t, actually,” Megatron admitted after a moment. He was torn between satisfaction at not knowing who the pit this egocentric, over-polished little idiot was and thereby presumably offending him, and irritation at proving himself somehow ignorant. Ideally, he would have liked to have known but not cared. 

“I’m the third prince of the twilight court of Vos.” 

The Vosian city state, aside from its vicious army, was famous for its labyrinthine and demonstrably corrupt system of government—among whose three courts, named ever so predictably for states of the skies, the twilight court was the highest. 

Unlike in most other cities of Cybertron, ‘prince’ wasn’t really an empty title in Vos. 

Megatron’s frown, if anything, deepened. 

Now that it had been said aloud, the recognition fired in his processor—he _had_ heard of Starscream, very dimly, in a previous trading season. “You’re the one who got kicked out of that—military school.” 

“The Royal Vosian Military Academy. Yes. Yes, and it was a lot of fragging work,” he agreed, sounding aggrieved. “Do you know how hard it is to expel a prince?” 

Right. Because that made sense. 

“What does any of this have to do with my clan?” Megatron said, trying to steer the conversation back onto an increasingly uncertain path. 

“Well, nothing really—but your—excuse me, _other_ barbarians’—practice sparkmate kidnapping gives me the perfect cover for leaving. _I_ can’t help it,” he said smugly, “I was kidnapped.” 

Megatron made an annoyed noise in his throat. They’d been thrown out of cities before, on the basis of the city-forged population’s misunderstanding of such practices. He ground his teeth. “You were not kidnapped. Why can’t you just tell them no? Don’t be an idiot.” 

“ _ **You** don’t be an idiot_,” snapped Starscream. “They don’t care if I say no or not. Vosian princes are supposed to be military officers—” 

“ _That_ went well,” Megatron snorted. 

“—and if they can’t be military officers they’re supposed to be quiet disappointments _somewhere else_. As I do _not_ envision myself whining prayers to Primus for the rest of my existence, alternative plans must be made!” His face contorted into a grimace. It was also quite pretty. “Although I suppose there’s not much chance of any science academy _anywhere_ taking me now.” 

Undoubtedly. 

Megatron looked up at the roof of his tent. Sunlight was beginning to glow from between the seams. 

Megatron did not really understand the politics behind all this nonsense. He understood the interclan tension between Vos and many of the other, less well-armed, city-states, and he knew that Iacon had a reputation as the holy city. Perhaps some sort of—alliance, or exchange, or _something_ was supposed to be taking place here, coincidentally ridding Vos of a prince who was a particular embarrassment. 

He didn’t entirely understand why a prince couldn’t be quietly shuffled off to a science academy somewhere, since that seemed to be what he wanted to do so badly that he’d sabotaged every other opportunity presented to him. And he wasn’t sure about the reputation business. 

What he _did_ understand was that he was supposed to have absconded with a pretty seeker prince—presumably stealing him out from under the steady gaze of his watchers—and dragged him out to the wastes. The city mechanisms, in their complete lack of understanding of _any_ clan’s customs, would presume him to be holding him captive to interface with. 

…Which would, in turn, preclude him from being allowed to serve as a priest. 

No, actually, he didn’t understand that part very clearly either. 

The important thing, which he truly did understand, was— 

_We’re never going to be able to go back to Iacon again_ , Megatron thought sourly. Not that it was a huge loss, but—using the high wall for shelter was marginally better than waiting the storm season out in the caves. 

Other clans had… better positions, territory to which they regularly returned to wait out the season. They were large clans, and usually very successful, full of lightning-fast speedsters and heavy warriors. It wasn’t much use trying to steal their territory, for the most part. Megatron’s clan was a poor target for an all-out assault, but they excelled at defence, not… 

He eyed Starscream. 

The sharp, shapely frame. The lightweight armour. The angular, graceful _wings_. He really was the pinnacle of seeker design, wasn’t he. 

Well.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll take you with us.” 

“ _What_ ,” squawked Starscream. 

“There’s nowhere else for you to go,” Megatron said, getting to his feet, businesslike. “Clearly. And you don’t want to go back to the Primacy, do you?” 

“...no,” Starscream said, warily. Wariness was good. At least he wasn’t an idiot, on top of being egotistical and obnoxious. “If you’re intending to ransom me back—” 

“Not at all,” Megatron said. He watched Starscream get to his knees in his shadow, and fancied that kneeling looked rather well on him. A wonderful view of those wings. “You’re going to earn your keep.” 

A rush of conflicting emotions crossed Starscream’s face. “I suppose that was always a possibility,” he muttered. 

He hitched his wings up high and spread his knees, showing off the equally polished white armour of his thighs and the cherry red of his pelvic span. It was a very tempting posture, and the flush of embarrassment was lovely on him. 

Megatron hated to decline such an offer. But he did. 

“No, no, not that,” he said, laughing. Starscream stiffened, somehow even more embarrassed for having the invitation, which he had certainly not really meant, rejected. 

“We can come back to _that_ later,” he couldn’t help but add. 

“Limited time offer,” Starscream said, flat and unimpressed. What a strange, proud thing he was. Megatron was suddenly very much looking forward to seeing how he fit in—if he fit in. “What do you want, then?” 

“You got in here past three of my watchers, didn’t you?” Megatron mused, watching Starscream get back to his feet without any sign of stiffness. He was well-maintained, of course, but he was also well- _designed_. Perhaps he did want to do some obscure scientific research—Megatron could even see the practicality of such a thing, could understand wanting to learn as a driving motivation in a person’s functioning—but what that frame was _designed_ for was something else completely. 

“The minicon in the sky was interesting,” Starscream said, still wary. 

“Laserbeak. Yes. Very few other clans have such small, reliable watchers—” But Laserbeak, like all of the cassettes, had a very limited range from Soundwave, no armour, and almost no carrying capacity. Quite unlike _Starscream_. “—and none have a flight frame faster than a helicopter. They’d never catch you.” 

“Few can,” said Starscream, smirking. He brushed a completely nonexistent bit of dust from his gleaming cockpit. Megatron could just imagine how he looked in the sky. It filled him with a hunger completely different, and much more intense, than the thought of crawling between those shiny white thighs and having his way with him. 

Well. If he played it carefully, he was sure he could have both. 

“Tell me, do you think you could sneak into some _other_ clan leader’s tent?” 

“Was that supposed to be difficult?” Starscream wondered, examining one pristine claw. “What am I supposed to do there? Kill them? Of course I can. It’s getting out after that would be the problem.” 

“No,” Megatron shook his head. As if he’d risk something like Starscream in an immediate close-quarters fight. No, no. He was going to be—a scout, a raider, a sky-hunter, so many, many things. He wasn’t going to engage in close quarters ground combat on purpose. “You’re just going to…” Perhaps it was best to ease him into the idea. “…leave them a package.” 

“A bomb, you mean,” Starscream clarified, unfazed. “Yes, all right.” 

Megatron paused. “Just like that?” 

Even actual clansmechs disliked the necessity of underhanded tactics like that one. City-forged mechanisms were, in Megatron’s experience, much less forgiving of violence in general, let alone— 

“Did you think the Military Academy expelled me for bad grades?” Starscream demanded snidely, evidently reading something of his thoughts off his face. 

It didn't seem impossible, frankly. It remained mysterious to Megatron why Starscream had thought coming out here like this was a good idea. What was he supposed to have done, _after_?

It was one tactic, not necessarily a poor one, but blindly (and perhaps desperately) employed, without any place in an overall strategy. He wasn't sure what they were teaching at that fancy academy, but this morning's behaviour seemed spontaneous and ill-considered, and didn't seem to imply anything good about this long-term planning skills or consequential thinking.

Was he just thinking to fling himself from disaster to disaster in the hope that he'd land on his feet? 

Megatron scowled at the thought, imagining the circumstances in which Starscream could have gotten himself killed well before Megatron could use him. It was immediately clear that he needed someone to provide some... stability. And Megatron felt sure that his clan would prove more _flexible_ to Starscream's other interests than any fixed role in one of Cybertron's big cities. A mech could be an assassin _and_ a scientist, in Megatron's clan.

And he also had this horrid little sneer, which Megatron found unaccountably, maddeningly attractive. 

And he was still talking.

“I’m not a sparkling, I know how to make and set a _bomb_.” As though every mechanism alive knew how to make and set a bomb. Of course. 

It was the sheer over-abundance of confidence, Megatron decided: Starscream had been utterly unfazed by every part of this experience, convinced from the start that he’d come through in the same pristine state. Even when Megatron had had him by the throat, growling into his face. 

In fact, the only time he hadn’t seemed completely sure of himself was when he’d thought Megatron simply wanted to frag him. In Megatron’s view, that just meant that he probably was just as ‘untouched’ as the Primacy could have wanted, which was certainly a thought that bore contemplation— 

Starscream’s wings twitched, and Megatron realised he was staring—and not doing a great job at concealing his interest, either. 

It was thought that Megatron would need to come back to. ...Later. 

“Fine. Yes. A bomb,” he said, shaking the thought off. “You’d be expected _not_ to wake them up,” he added, turning to slide back the opening to his tent. He had well and truly missed his watch—Soundwave had left him a low-priority comm to say he’d taken it for him. Ah, Soundwave. Outside the sky was lightening with first dawn and the clan were emerging from their tents, ready to start another long, slow day of travel. 

“That was a fluke,” hissed Starscream, bristling. His plating flared, absurdly mobile and expressive. It reminded Megatron of Laserbeak’s, more than any of his larger clansmechs’. “I didn’t even _touch_ you—” 

“Anyone would feel you staring at them like that,” Megatron said, straightening up to his full height. The tent necessarily required a bit of a stoop. 

“That’s absurd.” Starscream took a step back just to keep holding his optics. 

“What did you think you were doing, anyway? Staring at my face in the dark?” 

“I—it’s—That’s—that’s none of your business,” he blustered, looking away. 

Uh- _huh._

Megatron smiled, narrow and very satisfied indeed. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, if you found that you liked something about this fic, please feel free to let me know in a comment! Thanks and have a good afternoon. :)


End file.
